Writer-ac­tivist Jagdeesh Singh states that the sec­ond de­ci­sive vic­tory of the Bharatiya Janta Party in the In­dian gen­eral elec­tions sends out not only a sig­nal but a clear af­fir­ma­tion to the world and to civil­ian pop­u­la­tions within In­dian ter­ri­to­r­ial bound­aries, that Hindu supremism has risen and is here to stay! He ar­gues that the ba­sis of In­dia was al­ways a ma­jori­tar­ian Hindu In­dia which was chal­lenged re­mark­ably by Sant Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale in June 1984. 

THE con­tin­ued, un­stalled rise of the Hin­dutva su­prema­cist-cum-na­tion­al­ist agenda since the for­ma­tion of the In­dian state in 1947, has now reached full po­lit­i­cal-gov­er­nance level. The dor­mant, yearn­ing, Hin­dutva power seek­ing syn­drome, that was ea­gerly prop­a­gated decades ear­lier by the Hindu su­prema­cist vi­sion­ar­ies like Hedge­war and Sawarkar, has now ma­tured into a full-blown, ag­gres­sive po­lit­i­cal leviathan!

The In­dian state was al­ways go­ing to be so, by its very na­ture and by de­fault be­cause of its ma­jori­tar­i­an­ism, cen­tral­is­tic, for­ma­tion; a Hindu-cen­tric en­tity ruled and used by a Hindu-In­dian elite.

The Nehru-Gandhi duo and their co­terie, did much to con­ceal this em­bed­ded base re­al­ity from other na­tions, so­cio-re­li­gious and eth­nic com­mu­ni­ties (e.g. Pan­jaabis, Sikhs, Mus­lims, Na­gas, Tamils, Kash­miris, Ma­nipuris, Dal­its) as the crunch mo­ment of the 1947 British trans­fer of power ar­rived.

The Nehru-Gandhi talk of a sec­u­lar In­dia was all talk, and no sub­stance, de­signed to at­tract and mis­lead com­mu­ni­ties like the Sikhs, Dal­its, Kash­miris and more into ac­ced­ing into an In­dian Union. The same game of sweet promises was played by Jin­nah to the Sikhs and oth­ers. Both sides proved to be ut­ter, ab­ject liars!

The speedy, in­stant and eth­ni­cally cleans­ing 1947 carve-up of the colo­nially con­quered map of South Asia (‘In­dia’), was al­ways go­ing to serve se­lect in­ter­ests and cre­ate power for rul­ing elites on both sides.

The stu­pen­dous lie of In­dia be­ing a clean, sec­u­lar, non-re­li­gious, non-sec­tar­ian, won­drous cre­ation in 1947, was in it­self a prop­a­gated lie! In­dia has un­rav­elled and un­folded into its nat­ural shape and con­fig­u­ra­tion, over the last 70-years. In­dia was by de­sign a Hindu power base, to be used as ever prior by cruel, tyran­ni­cal Hindu heads of state to mal­ad­min­is­ter and mis­gov­ern their civil­ian pop­u­la­tion.

The Nehru-Gandhi talk of a sec­u­lar In­dia was all talk, and no sub­stance, de­signed to at­tract and mis­lead com­mu­ni­ties like the Sikhs, Dal­its, Kash­miris and more into ac­ced­ing into an In­dian Union. The same game of sweet promises was played by Jin­nah to the Sikhs and oth­ers. Both sides proved to be ut­ter, ab­ject liars!

The text­books, speeches, slo­gans and rhetoric of a great, free, in­clu­sive In­dia; are a vi­cious, ab­ject smoke-screen to con­ceal the cru­el­ties of what has been the can­cer­ous baby that took birth in 1947.

In­dia al­ways en­shrined Hindu power and Hindu po­lit­i­cal iden­tity, di­rectly and in­di­rectly. The Hindu mass which oc­cu­pies and pop­u­lates the many core, mid­dle ad­min­is­tra­tive states of In­di­a’s mega-ter­ri­to­r­ial size; in their keen af­fil­i­a­tion to Hindu iden­tity and em­pow­er­ment (spurred on by ha­tred of ‘sep­a­ratist’ Sikhs, Kash­miris, Ma­nipuris and the re­bel­lious equal­ity seek­ing Dal­its and ‘tyran­ni­cal’ fifth colum­nist Mus­lims), were al­ways go­ing to emerge as the cen­tral, mass elec­toral base of In­dia. When you have such big, over­whelm­ing ma­jori­ties to rely on; you don’t need to ad­dress or re­spond to mi­nor­ity con­cerns.

The dri­ver and blood-flow of In­dia is Hindu iden­tity, Hindu em­pow­er­ment and Hindu supremism. Coura­geously de­fi­ant per­sons like Jar­nail Singh Bhin­dran­wale (1947-1984), fore­warned of this ris­ing mon­stros­ity and pointed to its ugly di­vi­sive and sec­tar­ian fea­tures dur­ing his mon­u­men­tal life. He dared to stand up and chal­lenge the mega-In­dian state. He was, thus, tar­geted, crim­i­nalised and mur­dered in the no­to­ri­ous, geno­ci­dal In­dian Army mil­i­tary strike on Am­rit­sar and wider East Pan­jaab in June 1984.

In­dia was de­signed on the ba­sis of ma­jor­ity ver­sus mi­nor­ity, num­bers. This was the du­plic­i­tous trick of In­dian ‘democ­ra­cy’. En­gulf and over­whelm by sheer pop­u­la­tion num­bers, and call it ‘democ­ra­cy’.

Sant Jar­nail Singh dared to stand up and chal­lenge the mega-In­dian state. He was, thus, tar­geted, crim­i­nalised and mur­dered in the no­to­ri­ous, geno­ci­dal In­dian Army mil­i­tary strike on Am­rit­sar and wider East Pan­jaab in June 1984.

There are those fan­ci­ful per­sons who seek to de­ceive them­selves and oth­ers, as to the true na­ture of the In­dian state. The In­dian state no longer hides its open and brute iden­tity from any­one. The fore­warn­ings of a ‘mil­i­tant’, ‘sep­a­ratist’, ‘crim­i­nal ter­ror­ist’ like Bhin­dran­wale, have un­folded into re­al­ity.

The only com­mend­able thing about the cur­rent, fur­ther rise of the Hin­dutva state, is that it will re­move once and for all any lin­ger­ing doubts about the much prop­a­gated ‘sec­u­lar’ la­bel of the In­dian state. The Hindu su­prema­cist mon­ster was al­ways there, ly­ing in wait for its full-frontal rise to power; aided and abet­ted through the In­dian Na­tional Con­gress and other gov­ern­ments over pre­vi­ous decades.

The out­ly­ing, bor­der na­tions that sit on the out­skirts of the In­dian state – Pan­jaab, Kash­mir, Ma­nipur, Tamil­nadu, Ma­nipur, Na­ga­land – have al­ways been restive and out­spo­ken against this suf­fo­cat­ing, tyran­ni­cal gi­ant of In­di­an­ism and In­di­an­i­sa­tion. To be In­dian is to be Hindu, and to be Hindu is to be In­dian! as the BJP lead­ers have con­sis­tently told us for the last 10 years or more. The Con­gress party may not put it in so many words but spared no op­por­tu­nity to feed the Hindu fangs.

Trag­i­cally, the nu­mer­i­cally small na­tions which were swept into the ter­ri­to­r­ial sub­sump­tion of the In­dian state in 1947 (and vice-versa into the par­al­lel Mus­lim ma­jori­tar­ian-su­prema­cist Pak­istan); have been ren­dered pow­er­less and de­fence­less against the might and tyranny of the ag­gres­sive and bel­liger­ent In­dian state.

Mean­while, the Dalit ‘Hin­du’ un­der­class that is ge­o­graph­i­cally spread and in­ter­spersed across the In­dian state, are just as per­se­cuted and op­pressed by the sim­ple fact of their ‘un­touch­able’ birth. In­deed, many Dal­its ac­cept this as a nat­ural. em­bed­ded, nor­malised con­di­tion of their lives – a grave symp­tom of com­plete dis­em­pow­er­ment. The same men­tal degra­da­tion and sub­ju­ga­tion ap­ply to all the other afore­men­tioned na­tions, eth­nic­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ties, who have borne the brunt of 70-years of sup­pres­sion and re­pres­sion. Be­com­ing a silent wit­ness to their fate as the Hin­duis­tic ‘boa-con­stric­tor’ (D Petrie, Re­port on De­vel­op­ments on Sikh Pol­i­tics, 1911) squeezes and suf­fo­cates them into a paralysing, deadly sub­mis­sion.

The only com­mend­able thing about the cur­rent, fur­ther rise of the Hin­dutva state, is that it will re­move once and for all any lin­ger­ing doubts about the much prop­a­gated ‘sec­u­lar’ la­bel of the In­dian state. The Hindu su­prema­cist mon­ster was al­ways there, ly­ing in wait for its full-frontal rise to power; aided and abet­ted through the In­dian Na­tional Con­gress and other gov­ern­ments over pre­vi­ous decades.

In­dia will now un­fold fur­ther and fur­ther into its Hindu su­prema­cist sub­stance, and pre­cip­i­tate its own fi­nal col­lapse un­der the weight of this.